Beauty From Ashes
I have been training different organizations across Goma to lead art therapy programs for many years primarily using a program called Tree of Life. A couple of years ago, I wrote some new components to this curriculum to be used in trauma healing. I called one of these sections “Rocks on the Ground” – little did I know at that time how much this component would translate directly to my recent work here and now.
On May 23 a volcanic eruption released rivers of lava that flowed into the Goma area, wiping out entire villages. Once the lava cooled, there was only black rock, and no sign that anyone ever lived in that place.
Kibati is a small village a few miles outside of Goma and was 90% destroyed by the lava during the eruption. There are just a few scattered homes and a school left standing. Now the village looks like a refugee camp, with makeshift homes covered in tarps housing the majority of the population. I recently partnered with The Congo Tree to go to Kibati and do the Tree of Life program with children at the lava site.
We met the children in the last standing school. Prior to starting the program, I walked on the top of the lava river – now hardened and cool, but still smelling of charred wood and sulfur. I thought about whose house I was possibly standing on top of – now covered in 3 feet of lava rock while the former residents are now living under tarps.
I picked up a few rocks and really thought about how I would present this new section of an art therapy program that was designed to celebrate life. When I designed this section, I was only thinking about the obstacles in life that cause us to not achieve our goals – I wasn’t thinking about kids that had literal rocks in their path. I prayed and decided I would not exactly follow the outline I had previously written – I would improvise.
This is a scary thing for someone like me – I like things planned, I like scripts, I like to know exactly what I am going to say. But I trusted God, that in this situation, He would know better what we could do with this section.
I stepped in front of 40 children and began by showing them one of the newly formed rocks and asked them what we do with rocks here. The answers were predictable – we move them or we use them. This became such a literal teaching. These people must literally move these rocks to claim their land and to rebuild, and many of these rocks will be used to rebuild – new foundations for homes, stacked along their perimeter as walls, ground down to sand for making bricks. These rocks will be used – just like the obstacles in our lives. So many things in our lives cannot just be removed – but must be worked with, worked around, and built upon.
Through The Congo Tree, we have been able to share the Tree of Life program in three different communities adversely affected by the volcanic eruption and share this incredible program with over 150 children.
‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way, though the mountains are moved into the heart of the sea…’ Psalm 46:1-2 ESV
Michelle serves with GlobalGrace in Democratic Republic of Congo